fp Turks and Caicos

Lydon Gardiner, owner and president of Air Turks and Caicos, has invested in a new strategy with hopes to becoming a major player in Caribbean regional air service.

“We are going after them aggressive,” Gardiner says, having recently applied for an operating license to take over routes from Air J Express, creating a hub for the airline in Kingston. “Our focus is to expand our service into the Northern Caribbean,” Gardiner told the fp.

With a hub in Kingston, Gardiner says ATC can take advantage of connections to major European and Russian markets. “Our strategy is to encourage more multi-destination stays in the Caribbean and specifically the TCI,” he explained.

The new routes will fly in and out of Kingston to Port Au Prince, Havana and Santo Domingo.

Kingston is centrally located within the northern Caribbean, which Gardiner says will allow ATC to offer access to the wider Caribbean region. “It is a pivotal point because of the importance of tourism in the Caribbean,” Gardiner said.

Gardiner’s strategy is to encourage more multi-destination stays within the Caribbean. He says many Caribbean destinations benefit from the large number of Europeans who have low-cost direct flights to their countries.

“Most of those tourists travel or would travel for several weeks at a time,” he said. Those extra weeks could be spent island hopping from one Caribbean country to another, he says. “It is a long way to come to only visit one country.”

This strategy could specifically benefit the TCI, offering a hub for those connecting from the east through Kingston to Turks and Caicos.

In addition to the added service through Jamaica, Gardiner is also negotiating with larger worldwide carriers to code-share flights through the Dominican Republic.

“We are working with a Russian carrier who brings 2,500 people per week to Punta Cana,” he said. Hopes are high they can strike a deal to bring several hundred of those tourists to the TCI each week, which benefits not only the carrier but the whole country. “The TCI is an elite destination for them, and we feel we can bring them to the TCI.”

Gardiner says for the Turks and Caicos resident there is also a benefit to all this expansion.

“They will have better access to the rest of the world,” he says. Gardiner says they will be changing their flight schedule to work with connecting flights, offering more connections and cheaper options.

“Santo Domingo offers as many opportunities as Miami,” he says, but with a shorter flight. Flight time from the TCI to the Dominican Republic is around 40 minutes.

Operating out of Jamaica is also significantly more cost effective, according to Gardiner, which offers another added benefit to the plan. He has also been pleased with the response he has received from officials in Jamaica, a reaction he has not had from the local government. “I am finding it difficult to do business with the new government,” he said.

Jamaica has been considering an open skies agreement, which would allow for carriers to fly in and out of their destination more freely. Gardiner says this type of attitude encourages business owners who want to do business in their country.

ATC has plans to expand their currently small operations in Jamaica from a current staff of two to a dozen in the next 90 days and potentially 30 when a ticket office and full operations are up and running. ATC has purchased two additional 30 passenger aircraft to assist in these new routes and has plans for more even larger aircraft in the near future.

All this expansion requires investment, something Gardiner said he is excited about.

“As a Turks and Caicos carrier, I am especially proud,” he said. “We take development and delivery of service very seriously. It is time Caribbean people excel in their own region.”

Air Turks and Caicos currently operates flights primarily between the islands of Providenciales, Grand Turk and South Caicos with international routes to the Bahamas, Haiti, Jamaica and the Dominican Republic.